This is an interesting move from the GAA…
Sky Sports has obtained exclusive Island of Ireland rights to 14 Championship games.
These consist of eight Saturday evening matches in the All-Ireland qualifiers, two All-Ireland football championship quarter-finals, and two Saturday evening and two Sunday Provincial championship games.
Confirmed fixtures which will be broadcast on Sky include Kilkenny v Offaly and Dublin v Wexford in the Leinster SHC; Sligo v Galway/London in the Connacht SFC; and Armagh/Cavan v Down/Tyrone/Monaghan in the Ulster SFC.
Sky Sports will also broadcast live the All-Ireland Hurling and Football semi-finals and finals, thus making 20 live games available to its subscribers throughout Britain and Ireland.
In addition the GAA revealed that fans in Australia will be able to watch all 45 games live on Channel 7.
The Aussie deal seems like a good one to me. The game is already relatively popular there, though few play it as a first choice code, it’s favoured as a second or third sport for the high level ball handling skills.
The Sky deal (because of the injection of big money), less so…
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty